North Lanarkshire Update

North Lanarkshire has still to respond to my latest FOI letter regarding the formerly secret report to its Corporate Management Team from August 2005.

As regular readers know the Council was forced to disclose this document by the Scottish Information Commissioner, but the key data from the report has been deliberately removed which looks highly suspicious since the missing data relates to one of the largest groups of equal pay claimants (including Home Carers) from the  Social Work Department.

Now the missing information must have been included in the original CMT report from August 2005 because it stands to reason that the Council's chief executive and other chief officials could not possibly have approved a document which contained these very obvious and highly significant gaps. 

So you can bet your bottom dollar that these issues will be raised in the most forcible way with the Council if the outstanding equal pay claims have to go back to the Employment Tribunals.

Meanwhile discussions continue on a detailed Memorandum of Understanding and as soon as there is any news to report the details will be shared on the blog site.

North Lanarkshire Update (16 February 2015)

Here's my latest email exchange with North Lanarkshire Council over the previously secret report to the Corporate Management Team (CMT) dated 11 August 2005.

In my view the Council is still withholding crucial information from this document which relate to the Social Work Department and the steps taken by senior managers to cut the costs of implementing new pay arrangements.

As regular readers know, ultimately these new pay arrangements were introduced in such a way as to favour traditional male jobs over their female colleagues and that's what I am seeking to get to the bottom of in this latest FOI exchange.

Dear June

Corporate Management Team Report - 11 August 2005

I refer to the letter from North Lanarkshire Council's Freedom of Information Coordinator dated 13 February 2015.

I would like to submit the following FOI Review Request in light of the Council's failure to respond to the following specific points in my previous letter dated 4 February 2015.

In the penultimate paragraph of my letter to Neil McKay I requested a copy of the original CMT report submitted by North Lanarkshire Council to the Employment Tribunals and I asked for my letter of 4 February to be considered as a formal FOI request, in this respect. 

The reason this information is potentially very important is that the Council has created the most terrible 'guddle' over what information is actually contained in the various CMT Appendices and I wish to confirm whether or not the Council has been consistent in disclosing information to me, the Employment Tribunal and the Scottish Information Commissioner. 

As you probably know, the Council claimed during a formal investigation by SIC that Appendix 5 of the CMT report was missing but then, all of a sudden, the document was found although, by this time, the Council had decided that Appendix 5 was really Appendix 4, and that Appendix 4 was really Appendix 5. 

In any event I believe that having sight of the information as provided by the Council to the Employment Tribunals will help clear up this confusion which is why I submitted a new FOI request on 4 February 2015.

For example, Appendix 5 (or 4) is supposed to be an analysis of the movement off the 'green circles', i.e. the reductions in the projected cost of the green circles, but this information is missing from the Appendix. Whether the Appendix is numbered  5 or 4 is really beside the point because the more far important issue is that the contents of the Appendix are not being properly disclosed and, in my view, the Council has a duty under FOISA to explain itself. 

In my letter to Neil McKay I also made reference to Appendix 5 and Appendix 7 of the CMT report because important financial information has clearly been redacted or selectively removed. For obvious reasons, this vital data must have been included in the report when the document was originally considered by the CMT on 11 August 2005. 

In his letter dated 13 February 2015 Neil McKay says that "the Council does not hold any further information relative to the CMT report other than that which has already been provided to you", but this cannot possibly be true because the original financial information must have come from the Council's Finance Department which would hold and retain this data independently. 

So, I simply do not believe that the information I have requested cannot be retrieved from the Council's data systems and in light of the mess the Council created previously over the 'missing' Appendix 5 (or 4) I would ask that you look at this matter again very carefully.

In my view I have no need to submit a further FOI request in respect of Appendix 5 and Appendix 7 because the Council is already the subject of a disclosure order from SIC in relation to the CMT report and I would expect the Council to be as helpful as possible in providing the missing information, as required by the disclosure order and in light of the Council's wider obligations under FOISA. 

If the missing data in respect of Appendix 7 and Appendix 7 cannot now be provided, I would expect a full and proper explanation as to why this information is no longer held by the Council's Finance Department.

As to the reasons why certain information is missing from the CMT report, I do indeed believe that the Council should be investigating how this happened and who is responsible for removing information from an official and hugely significant Council document.

I fully accept that such an investigation is beyond the scope of FOISA, but that does not make it any less necessary or desirable from the standpoint of good governance and as this information certainly seems to have been removed deliberately, the question arises as to whether there has been 'misconduct in public office' which is why I asked in a previous communication whether the Council had involved Police Scotland. 

I have dealt with many Scottish councils in my time and if I were a chief official in North Lanarkshire (or an equal pay claimant) I would certainly wish to know why specific parts of the CMT report are missing, especially as the information involved relates to the Social Work Department where the largest single group of equal pay claimants is based.  

If North Lanarkshire does not now vigorously investigate these matters and fails to hold those responsible to account, I suspect it will further damage the Council's credibility in the eyes of the public, but this of course does not amount to a valid reason for refusing the release the information which I have requested under FOISA.

I look forward to you reply and would be grateful if you could respond to me by email at: markirvine@compuserve.com

Kind regards

Mark